Steel-wool unit



L. STERN STEEL WOOL UNIT Aug. 25, 1925.

Original Filed Feb.

:is ai i ,e i ifi u n: i si Patented Aug. 25, 1925.

LAWRENOE STERN, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO AMERCAN STEEL W'OOL MANU- FACTURING COMPANY, INC., OF NEW YORK, N'. Y., A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

STEEL-WOOL UNT.

Original application filed February 1, 1922, Serial No. 533,437.

1924. ScriaI'No. 708,196.

To all whom it may concern.:

Be it known that I, LAWRENCE STERN, United States citizen, residing at 229 l/Vest 105th Street, New York city, New York, have invented the following described lmprovements in SteelsVVool Units.

The object of my invention is to provide a permanently and substantially uniformly compacted and thoroughly intermeshed mass of steel wool which has a denite and convenient shape and size, capable of use as a unit. This intermeshing, intermingling and permanent compacting may be accomplished by rolling in the machine also illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The present application is a division of my application for preparation of steel wool filed February 1, 1922, serial No. 533,437.

Steel wool, as is well lniown, is an abrasive material co-nsisting of long, curly, filamentary steel shavings, which become loosely and irregularly matted in the course of production and handling so as to form masses or assemblages of tangled bunches of irregular shapes and widely varying sizes. Each mass can be divided into smaller bunches fairly easily by rupturing the strands. Such material is usually put on the market either in this condition or compressed into strong containers. By compression the material may be compacted, but the elasticity of the metal is so superior to the interlocking of the tangled strands which results from compression alone, that the mass expands very considerably when the pressure is relieved, as by opening` the package, and compression alone therefore is not effective for permanently compacting it; nor does compression serve to weld together or consolidate the individual parts of the mass so as to constitute them as a single, or, so to speak, one-piece bunch. In consequence, as this material is usually found on the market, it exhibits more or less definite lines and sub-lines demarking separate bunches and along which the mass or assemblage of tangledI strands tears and separates irregularly as the material is used, so that when the individual bunches happen to be small the user is constantly inconvenienced by having to gather and hold them together and continuously rearrange the separating bunches in his hand; and in the case of the larger bunches is put to the trouble of tearing them apart.

The invention of this application concerns units which are more uniformly tenacious, that is to say, less subject to disintegration or separation into smaller pieces or bunches in the course of use, such as are produced by rolling a mass of the loosely entangled strands by relatively moving surfaces. This produces a more thorough interlocking of the filaments than can be obtained in any other way so far as I am aware, and permanently compacts the material and intermeshes the strands beyond the ability of their elasticity to restore the material to its non-homogeneous form. Furthermore, the rolling treatment readily produces a unit peculiarly suited for immediate use, i. e. a flat-ended cylinder, and of such a size as may be conveniently held in the fingers.

In the accompanying drawing, Fig. 1 is a perspective of the steel wool unit of my invention in its preferred flat-ended cylindrical form, produced by rolling a quantity of loosely entangled strands. Figure 2 is an elevation partly in section of a machine for rolling such masses; Figure 3 is a plan of the same machine partly in section; and Figure 4 is a section on line lvl-IV of Figure 2.

By way of example, the machine shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4, which is designed to produce the homogeneous compacted unit of Fig. 1, consists essentially of two flexible leather belts 1 and 2 of equal width, spaced one above the other, and driven in the same direction (as indicated by arrows in Fig. 2) but at diiferent speeds. A frame 3 carries pulleys 4 and 5 for supporting the belts respectively and the belt 1 is driven by the' power pulley 6 fixed to the shaft of the pulley 4 at the left of the machine; in turn the belt 1 drives the belt 2 through the belt or chain connection 7 which is driven by a driving pulley 8 fixed on the shaft of the pulley 4 at the right lof the machine and drives a larger pulley 9 fixed to the shaft of the pulley 5 at the left, the different sizes o-f the pulleys 8 and 9 causing the belt 2 to move somewhat slower than the belt 1. Thus the adjacent courses of the belts 1 and 2, between which the rolls are formed, travel in oppo- Divded and this application filed April 22,

site directions and the lo-wer course, that is to say, the rolling surface provided by the belt 1 travels at a higher speed than the co-operating or upper rolling surface. Opposing side walls or forming members 13 and 1-1- at the edges of the rolling belts 1% and 2 complete a rolling` space or pass of rectangular cross section thr-ough which the wool travels, confining the wool between the belts and making the product uniform. These side walls may be of smooth metal over which the wool will slide easily. A. smooth-surfaced flexible shield 15, for eX- ample of sheet metal, over which the wool will also slide easily` may be extended around the pulley 5 and belt at the entrance end of the machine and somewhat into the end of the roll pass to assistin thel introduction of the wool into the pass by preventing contact of the wool with the outwardly7 moving belt 2 until the wool is well within the pass. The shield is preferably sloped downwardly toward the entrance of the pass, as shown, to co-operate with the divergent ends 19 of the side walls 13 and 14 and the. extension of the lower belt beyond the other at this end of the machine, all of which further assist in the introduction of the wool into the pass. Backing supports or belt supporting plates 16 and 17 bear against the inside of the belts for some distance toward the exit end of the machine to prevent undesired separation of the belts at this point.

A quantity of the loosely matted, tangled and twisted strands of steel wool, sufficient to form a single roll, being introduced into the machine between t-he divergent walls, the movement of the lower belt carries the mass to the right into the rectangular confined space between the belts and side walls. In its passage through this space (to the right, since the rolling course of the belt 1 moves to the right faster than the belt 2 moves to the left) the mass is turned over and over while held together by the side walls, and its component strands are thus worked into engagement with each other until the mass assumes the shape of a flat-ended cylinder and issues from the right of the machine as the homogeneous, compact and uniformly tenacious article illustrated at 18 (Fig. 1). At the exit end the machine may be provided with a table or extension 22 toy receive the cylinders from the rolling belts and pass them on to the belt conveyor 23 which takes them away, and preferably a number of such machines are arranged along a single conveyor belt 23. The article 18 may be marketed in its cylindrical form shown in Fig. 1, or, for example, may be re-shaped by compression into another form preferred by the user.

The rolled' article 18 may in some instances give a suggestion of layer formation (as at 25) as though it had been rolled up from a strip of the matted wool, but the layer effect usually extends only part way around the cylinder and the interlocking of the strands across the apparent line of division is usually quite suliicient for the ordinary purposes, and in any event the demarkation line is so located that the user may readily hold the article so that no separation will occur in use.

lVhile a machine for producing the invented unit has been described, it is evident that the principles underlying the invention may be put into practice and the unit produced in a variety of ways and by diverse forms of apparatus.

Claims:

1. A merchantable article of rolled up steel wool.

2. As an article of manufacture, a mass of steel wool rolled up from loosely engaged strands into the form of a compacted flatended cylinder.

3. As an article of manufacture, a rolledup mass of steel wool permanently compacted and intermeshed into a homogeneous unit of substantially uniform coherence and mass throughout.

In testimony whereof, I have signed this specification.

LAVRENCE STERN. 

